


Hand covers bruise

by Ischa



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Flirting, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:59:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky/The Winter Soldier invents himself and kind of starts dating Steve. </p><p> <i>“We were friends,” Steve Rogers said again. Emphasis on we. Not friends and that right there meant something. </i><br/><i>“You and him,” He said. “Don’t include me in your we. And stop lying."</i><br/><i>“I’m not,” Steve said.</i><br/><i>He had enough. Maybe Steve Rogers didn’t know. Maybe Bucky Barnes had kept it inside himself and the only way to get at it was to dig it out like a corpse buried under earth and 70 years’ worth of ice.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand covers bruise

**Author's Note:**

> Look what happened! I wrote Captain America fic. It won’t be the last. I blame omletlove, who also beta read this thing for me. <3

**~One~**  
It used to not bother him. Now all he can think of is the arm.  
Cold, hard metal, not part of him, but so much a part of him that losing it was – not an idea he was entertaining very often.  
James, James didn’t have the arm. James was gone, and Bucky was gone, and now the Winter Soldier was gone too. There was no purpose for the Winter Soldier anymore.  
There hadn’t been a purpose for James or Bucky back in the day, after he fell.  
What he learned so far from books and articles, every scrap of information he could find about James, about Bucky, was that their common purpose was to be there for Steve Rogers, to be there for Captain America.  
He was a dead man walking.  
Was it even desirable to reclaim a past he had no emotional connection to?  
The man in the pictures, he wasn’t – real? Alive?  
He rubbed the knuckles of his left hand with his flesh and blood one. This was real.  
He was part machine, and part assassin and a tiny, very tiny part the man who remembered Steve Rogers. 

~+~  
He knew that they were looking for him.  
Not only what was left of SHIELD, but also everyone else. HYDRA, of course, because they weren’t done yet. They were too clever for that.  
The Government – any Government.  
The man on the bridge that used to be Steve Rogers and was now Captain America. His sidekick, Sam.  
He didn’t know how he felt about that.  
Steve Rogers needed someone to have his back, but wasn’t that Bucky’s job? Bucky’s purpose? He wasn’t Bucky. And the Winter Soldier didn’t care for anything except the mission.  
Why was this nagging at him? Why was-  
He punched a wall with his real hand and relished the pain, closing his eyes and holding on to it. He would remember this, would hold on to it until he died. This was his. Everything from now on would be his. His decision, his memory, his. His. 

~+~  
His memories, those that came back slowly, were unreliable at best. Put against the facts from books, from documents, from wherever – a lot of them didn’t add up.  
He couldn’t trust himself on his past, but he wasn’t sure he could trust the rest of the world on it either.  
History was written by victors and survivors.  
He was – neither. 

~+~  
What was that devotion? What was it really?  
What had made Steve Rogers want to sign up for a war? Was he brave, was he stupid, was Steve – he didn’t know and it made him not crazy, not yet, but something that was itching and that he couldn’t scratch without making himself bleed.  
It had been that way before, if he could trust the historians. Bucky and Steve. BuckyandSteve. Like one word. Like one heartbeat. But what had it meant? What?  
Why did Steve Rogers not try to get out of that plane? Surely Steve Rogers could have survived the cold. He must have known that they would look for him.  
Did they look for Bucky Barnes?  
No.  
Body was never recovered.  
But Bucky hadn’t been important to anyone except for Steve Rogers.  
Still was if the single minded determination was anything to go by.  
He was looking for Bucky. The thing was, there was no Bucky. 

~+~  
And what was this thing that was trying to claw its way out of his chest and brain and memory.  
Why was it so important?  
Why was Steve Rogers so important to the person the Winter Soldier used to be?  
Why was everything coming apart because he remembered the man on the bridge?  
There were no answers for him inside his own head.  
And he’s been watching and avoiding the only other person who might know them.  
Might, because everyone kept secrets. And Bucky Barnes had been no exception. 

 

 **~Two~**  
“All the girls, all the pretty girls and he lived with you,” he said and sat down opposite of Steve Rogers. 

Steve looked up from a file he had been reading just seconds ago.  
He was sure Steve hadn’t heard him approach. It was a well-populated street and the outdoor cafes were full of tourists and locals alike. And he was a ghost. Silent and deadly if he wanted to be. 

“Bucky,” Steve said, putting the files on the table carefully. His fingers were trembling just the slightest bit. It was a weakness. He had shocked Steve Rogers. It was a good feeling. 

“Don’t call me by a dead man’s name,” he said. 

Steve’s eyes widened a bit, but he nodded anyway. “Okay.”  
He raised an eyebrow in question. There were methods to get answers, but he had chosen this spot for reasons. One of them might even be that he didn’t want to be alone with Steve Rogers, that he didn’t want to hurt him.  
Steve looked back for a second. “I’m sorry, was that a question?”  
That little shit, he thought and then – was that him or was that the ghost inside his body? Echo of the past? 

He made himself not react in a way maybe Bucky would have. “Yes.” 

“We were friends, I was sickly, he thought he needed to be there for me, he thought-“ 

“Lies,” he cut in. 

“We were friends,” Steve Rogers said again. Emphasis on we. Not friends and that right there meant something. 

“You and him,” He said. “Don’t include me in your we. And stop lying.”

“I’m not,” Steve said. 

He had enough. Maybe Steve Rogers didn’t know. Maybe Bucky Barnes had kept it inside himself and the only way to get at it was to dig it out like a corpse buried under earth and 70 years’ worth of ice. He got up, stretched in the rays of warm sunshine, could feel Steve Rogers’ eyes on him.  
“Bucky,” Steve said, his fingers were twitching on the table. 

“I told you to stop calling me that.” 

“Where are you going?” Steve asked, but what he meant was: will you come back.  
He looked down at Steve. And that was familiar and not, because yes, he had been looking down at Steve but then he had never been looking down at Steve. 

“Maybe,” he answered and judging by the small smile on Steve Rogers’ lips Steve knew what question he was really answering. 

~+~  
Bucky had buried his darker desires very deep, but on some level his and Bucky’s desires were the same.  
He hadn’t been looking for it, not really. It was more of a trial and error kind of thing.  
He couldn’t remember if there had been sex in the last 70 years. If the Winter Soldier had been active that way, he thought, probably not. Weapons don’t have sex. And with the arm he couldn’t have been in any kind of undercover operation that required seduction.  
It was just as well, he didn’t remember.  
He knew that Bucky had been a lady’s man. There surely had been sex before.  
There would be sex now.  
He started out by watching.  
Men and women, and women and women, and men and men.  
Combinations of them.  
Solo performances and group sex.  
It was all good. Flashes of soft lips against his skin and rough hands around his cock.  
Bucky Barnes, he decided, had been an equal opportunity kind of guy.  
He was too. 

~+~  
Masturbation had to be relearned, but it came back quickly. As if his muscles still knew what he needed and how to get it. Even after 70 years.  
Other people. Other people, sex with someone else that was a bigger challenge.  
There was no use in making himself pretty. He wasn’t Bucky, he wasn’t James, he wasn’t the Winter Soldier, he didn’t know who he was. But he looked like a guy who lived out of motels. He was that guy and guys like that, they paid for sex.  
It was an easy conclusion.  
He started slow, one step after another. Never the same girl twice.  
It was easy because he was still restless and Steve Rogers was still willing to follow leads that got him nowhere.  
The blowjobs were easy and good. He didn’t have to do much of anything. Sometimes he put his right hand on their heads and just let it there, played with short, purple hair while his dick swelled inside soft warm mouths.  
After that came fucking naturally as breathing. He knew that he probably shouldn’t care for the pleasure of the woman he was paying for, but – part of him, the Ghost part, the Bucky part – did. He got them off with his fingers and reined in the urge to stick his tongue inside that soft wet heat.  
The arm didn’t bother them. Mostly.  
He still kept his shirt on more often than not and wasn’t too keen on being touched there.  
They weren’t too keen to touch him there either. 

~+~  
The boys, for some reason, were more cautious. And they were always boys: scrawny with dirty blond hair and sometimes a bruise or two peeking out of the collars of their too small shirts.  
It was no problem to have them on their knees in an alley, but if he wanted to take them somewhere their eyes flickered to his arm and he clenched his fingers because the resentment was like a wave crashing over him.  
It didn’t mean some of them weren’t desperate enough to risk it anyway.  
Just because he looked for those with bruises, didn’t mean he wanted to hurt them further. Even as the Winter Soldier he didn’t want to hurt. He was just utterly indifferent to the pain he caused. Which in hindsight, he thought wryly, didn’t make him any different than the scientists who had operated on him.  
He laid them out on too thin bedspreads, and kissed their bruises, sucked their cocks and pushed his fingers inside their mouths and holes, to make them moan and cry and curse when they came.  
And then he sent them on their way with money in their pockets and small smiles on their faces.  
He learned everything useful about sex – let a few girls and boys even penetrate him – but it didn’t mean he knew what it should be like.  
With someone he cared for.  
But maybe it has always been like this. Even when he had been Bucky. 

~+~  
It was a bar this time. And Sam nowhere in sight.  
Bucky slid onto the stool beside Steve and ordered a drink with a wave of his fingers. 

“You can’t even get drunk,” he said. 

“Can you?” Steve asked. 

“Yes,” he answered, if there was enough of the stuff. Surely. 

“Should I just stop looking for you?” Steve asked. Steve wasn’t looking at him. His body was tense, but he wasn’t afraid, which was really stupid of him. 

“What would you do then, without a mission?” 

“Buc-“ Steve stopped, cleared his throat gently and turned his head to look at him. “You aren’t my mission. There are no missions. We are free to make our own decisions.”

He laughed, he couldn’t help himself. “Really? Try and tell them then that you quit. That you’ll be taking your money and are going to buy a farm in let’s say Kansas? I wonder how well that will go over.” 

“I couldn’t,” Steve said. 

“I know.” 

“Bucky,” Steve said and his voice was too soft, an exhale like the boy’s he fucked three days ago. His metal arm was around Steve’s throat before he could really think about it. It had sounded wrong from the boy’s mouth and it sounded wrong now. Steve’s fingers curled around the metal wrist. “I’m sorry,” Steve whispered. 

He let go one finger at a time. “Guess you can’t help yourself. I wear his face.” 

“Guess you can’t either,” Steve said. 

“I fucked around,” he said, ignoring Steve’s answer. He could hear Steve choke a bit on his whisky. 

“What?” 

“I fucked around.”

“You-“

“I mean me. Now, two days ago in fact, not him. But I know he did too and then he came home to you. Were you pissed off?” Are you now? 

“I-“

“If you lie to me again, I won’t come back,” he interrupted. 

Steve nodded, swallowed. “Yes, I was pissed off when he came home sometimes, reeking of cheap alcohol and perfume and women.” 

“What about the nights, it wasn’t perfume, but cologne?”

“I- what?” 

“Oh, of course,” he said. He turned to look at Steve then, limbs lose and sprawling a bit. “He fucked around with guys too.” Something ugly was curling inside his stomach. “Surely you suspected, as his best friend and all.” 

“No,” Steve said. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” 

“For leaving him alone with that,” Steve said earnestly. Steve rubbed his neck. “Was he in love?” 

“Yes,” he answered, his voice was too gentle, “Yes, he was.” 

 

 **~Three~**  
He wasn’t Bucky or James, or the Winter Soldier. He was a familiar stranger, but so was Steve. 

“What they had before,” he said to Steve, sitting down next to him on the park bench. “It’s not what I want.” 

“What do you want?” Steve asked. 

“A name,” he answered. He wanted so badly to have a name. But it wasn’t like he could pick one out just like that. You didn’t choose your name, it was given to you. 

“A name,” Steve echoed. 

“I know you want to give me one. But you knew him, who I am not anymore. You want to give me his name so you can have him back, but it doesn’t work like that.” 

Steve stayed silent like he was thinking about it, or an answer or how selfish he had been all this time.  
He leaned his head against the back of the bench and looked at the sky. It was getting cold, October nearly over. With Steve at his side he didn’t feel like he needed a jacket. “You don’t know the person a baby will grow up to be. You give a name to a bundle of nerves and parts. And hope for the best.” 

“That’s very old-fashioned. Look at Lady Gaga and Madonna, Cher,” Steve said. 

“I’m not a goddamned popstar, I’m a ghost, a shadow, made up of parts-“ he stopped, blinked. “Like Frankenstein’s Monster.” 

“But prettier,” Steve said. 

He had to turn and look at Steve then. “Are you flirting?”

Steve shrugged. “Maybe?” 

“But you and him, you never-“

“No,” Steve said. “I wasn’t lying. But since then, since he died, I wondered, you know?” 

“About what?” 

“About why Peggy hadn’t been enough to try and get out, get back, why it still hurt so much after all these years, why I’d rather let you, the Winter Soldier, kill me than lose him again.” 

“And your answer is flirting?” he asked. 

“You said he was in love,” Steve said quietly. 

“He was,” he replied. 

“With me?” 

“Yes,” he answered. “But I’m not him.” He added and got up. “Will be seeing you, Rogers.” 

~+~  
These little meetings with Steve were like pushing fingers into a bruise to keep it a bit longer.  
Unhealthy, nostalgic, exciting.  
It was better now that Steve started to see Bucky as someone he was not.  
Easier to try and find out who he was and where to go from there. 

“Sam asked if these are dates,” Steve said, as he sat down next to Steve. 

“I hope you said no,” he replied. 

“I hope that it will be more classy than a hole in a wall bar where we don't get drunk,” Steve said. “Also I would like to dress nicely.” 

He laughed and it was genuine and strange. “And would I have to dress up too?” 

“Only if you want to,” Steve said. “You always look good to me.”  
“And I thought he used to be the sweet-talker. You have clearly hidden depths, Rogers.” 

“He was, but I prefer your style of doing things.” 

He looked at Steve, smiled, grinned maybe a little. “Yeah? What's my style?” 

“Head on and honest.” 

“Honest?” 

“Yes, when you told me about having sex-”

“Fucking around with whores, Steve,” he cut in. 

“See? Only proves my point,” Steve replied. He seemed amused. It made warmth spread through his veins. It was a good feeling. Having Steve here and close and comfortable, loose-limbed. Smiling.  
Maybe these were dates, maybe he was wooing Steve. 

“Wasn't he honest?” 

“To a point, sure. But he also obviously had secrets. And you...try not to have any.” 

“I just don't want to be a ghost anymore,” he said. “I don't want to be a secret.” 

Steve cocked his head. “If these were dates, if you and I, if we would try to be – together, I would never make you my secret.”  
The fucked up thing was Steve meant it. It would be a shitstorm of unthinkable proportions and Steve didn't seem to care. 

“Steve-”

“See? I already lost everything and everyone who mattered to me. Peggy's gone like Bucky and you...you aren't Bucky, but I don't think it's a bad thing. For us.” 

“Historians always tell us how important the past is for the future.” 

“What do they know? Half of it is speculation, the other half half-truths and lies.”

“Like you being a national hero instead of a suicidal mess.” 

“Yes,” Steve said. “Both things are true I guess, but only one is acknowledged by the historians.” 

He downed his drink. “You have no fucking common sense.” 

“He used to say that when he was patching me up after the fights I lost.” 

“He's like an echo, sometimes it's irritating as hell.”  
Sometimes it was nice. 

“He was right of course. I always got him in trouble by getting into fights. I just couldn't help myself.” 

“You still can't,” he said. 

Steve gifted him with a lopsided grin. “Maybe I'm an adrenalin junkie, maybe it's not a bad thing.”  
Maybe he was Steve's fix then, maybe it wasn't a bad thing. 

~+~  
He leaned against the table in the coffee place Steve was frequenting ever so often. Steve wasn’t alone. Sam was sitting right there.  
He could have waited for Sam to leave, or he could have chosen another day to see Steve and share a coffee. Chosen another day to talk. 

“Hi,” Steve said, his voice was warm and inviting like Steve’s eyes and face and whole body. He was staring at Steve and he knew it, and he also knew that his lips were trying to smile back, he let them. He was aware of Sam’s eyes on them. Dimly, because mostly everything was narrowed down to Steve. He wanted to kiss Steve in front of all these people, in front of Sam. To stake a claim, his claim.  
Sam coughed politely. He smiled and it widened into a grin as he turned his head to look at Sam. 

“Sam Wilson,” Sam said, offering his hand. 

“I know, we’ve met. I tried to kill you,” he replied. 

“Happens to the best of us,” Sam said easily. “You got that out of your system it seems.”

He laughed. Mostly he had gotten the Winter Soldier out of his system, but not the skills and that was a good thing too. Steve needed someone to have his back.  
“Yes,” he said. 

“Wanna sit down? Have a coffee?” Steve asked. 

“Yes,” he answered, still battling the urge to kiss Steve and claim him as his. 

~+~  
He bought a book with baby names for inspiration and was kind of horrified when he started leafing through it. Bucky still felt wrong on his own lips, Winter Soldier was who he was when he was on a mission. He would keep that one. Like Sam kept Falcon.  
In the end it was really more of a coincidence. Once he saw Star Trek it was pretty much a done deal. 

“They never called him Jimmy or Jim,” he said as he sat down next to Steve. Another sunny day, another outside café. 

“No, they didn’t.”

“I like Jim,” he said, it was close enough to his birth name, but also far away enough from it to be a whole new person. 

“Jim,” Steve said, like he was tasting it out. 

“Jim with the metal arm and deadly skills, the nightmares and protective streak. Jim,” he said, “who would like to take you out on a real date, Steve Rogers.” 

“Yes,” Steve said.

“Dinner, movies? You let me kiss you on the porch?” he asked. 

Steve smiled at him. “Yes, yes and yes. Also, maybe I’ll drag you inside and let you push me against the wall while you ravish me.” His skin was turning a fine shade of pink and his eyes had gone a shade darker. Steve was trying to play it cool. 

“Been thinking about that a lot?” he teased. It was so easy to just be with Steve, when Steve didn’t want him to be Bucky. 

“Probably more than I should,” Steve admitted. 

“Come here,” he replied, reaching out with the metal hand and curling its deadly fingers around Steve’s neck oh so gently, pulling him in.  
Steve inhaled sharply and then they were kissing. Slow and gentle at first, but it was escalating fast. 

“Jim,” Steve moaned once they came up for air and yeah, he thought, that sounded as right as it should from Steve’s slightly swollen lips.


End file.
